NSW’s Support for International Technology Investors

For businesses eyeing Asia-Pacific markets, Sydney provides the ideal gateway to the region.

Sydney and the state of New South Wales have become magnets for world-class talent, offering an enviable quality of life and a thriving place to grow your business.

Sydney is Australia’s commercial and innovation capital, a globally-connected, fast growing city. It is English-speaking, is located in Asian time zones, and has a business culture that embraces technological change.

On top of these advantages, the NSW Government provides tailored packages of assistance to investors, depending on their particular needs.

The NSW Government is able to able to support technology companies entering the Sydney market by connecting them with the local businesses, partners, talent pipelines, and key customers so they can grow their business in Australia.

For example, Jobs for NSW recently announced an investment of AUD $1.67 million in a brand-new global cyber security R&D facility for the British telecom heavyweight BT, the company’s first investment of this type outside the UK.

The areas of expertise in the new facility include cyber security, machine learning, data science analytics and visualisation, big data engineering, cloud computing, data networking, and the full life cycle of software engineering.

Located in fast-growing North Sydney, an extension of the Sydney CBD across the Harbour, the facility is expected to create more than 170 jobs over the next five years. BT will also make a $2 million investment in capital infrastructure, and a further multi-million dollar investment to employ cyber security specialists.

This operation is helping attract and retain Australia’s best cyber security talent here in NSW and ensure Sydney remains the regional leader in this fast-growing industry.

With 44 per cent of Australia’s startup founders based in NSW, Sydney’s dense entrepreneurial ecosystem is streets ahead of the rest of Australia.

Global technology firms are also choosing Sydney as the location for their first Asia-Pacific offices.

Google, IBM, Dimension Data, Dropbox, and Microsoft are among the latest in a series of global digital and ICT leaders including Snap, Airbnb, Uber, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to select Sydney as the base for their Australian and Asia Pacific operations, recognising Sydney's significant role at the heart of the region’s digital economy.

Sydneysiders and Australians in general are world leaders in the early adoption of technology, making NSW an ideal environment to test new technologies and products. Citibank, Coke, McDonalds, Tesla, AOL, and Priori Data have successfully used Australia as a test market for new tech products or services that are focused on new strategic business initiatives, optimising R&D spend, and launching new global offerings.

A recent KPMG report identified Australia as one of the top five emerging global FinTech markets. Deloitte now ranks Sydney as one of the world’s top 10 hubs for financial services, and the city’s FinTech companies are making a global impact in payments systems, lending, investment advice, digital currency and more.

Examples of this include:- Tyro, which provides industry-leading mobile point of sale (POS) terminals- Prospa, an online lending service that offers quick business loan applications and evaluations- Airwallex, whose flexible solutions simplify cross-border payments using fixed rates- ZipMoney, an interest-free lending service with a promising outlook that recently received an AUS$40 million investment from major Australian bank Westpac.

The NSW Government has also invested $35 million in the Sydney Startup Hub. This exciting initiative will improve connections across the entire NSW startup community and enable entrepreneurs to easily tap into skills, ideas, networks and investment.

The Sydney Startup Hub will accommodate up to 2,500 people and house some of Australia’s most innovative startups, incubators, and accelerators.

It’s an ambitious move that will support innovation, and open doors for entrepreneurs.

It is yet another way that we are propelling Sydney into the world’s top 10 ranked innovation centres.

The NSW Government is committed to making sure we don’t slowdown in any of these industries.

We will continue to make Sydney competitive.

We will continue to lead the country in innovation.

We will continue to deliver the best.

Dan Siroker, Co-Founder - Australia, Optimizely

"For us, the move to Australia was a no brainer. There is a strong culture of innovation here, a great startup mentality, with individuals who are truly disrupting their industries.”

Bill McMurray, Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Qualtrics.

“American companies see Sydney as an excellent location to launch their businesses into Asia Pacific.

“Sydney is highly compatible with the US in terms of culture, language, and solution applicability, which allows for an easier fast-start within the region. These businesses can build quickly by taking advantage of the city’s qualified, yet affordable talent pool.

“Sydney also operates within the Asian time zone allowing local teams to provide sales and support across the Asia Pacific region during regular business hours.”